


When the roses bloom

by detective_terrible_detective



Series: Tales from Camelot and beyond [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - World War II, Camelot, Character Death, F/M, Flowers, Roses, War, but it's a village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 20:58:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detective_terrible_detective/pseuds/detective_terrible_detective
Summary: Since he was a small boy, Percival had watched his father tend to the great gardens of the Pendragon estate. He knew the names of all the flowers, the conditions they grew best in, which ones you could eat and which ones shouldn't come within a foot of your mouth. He loved them all, but the roses were his favourite.





	When the roses bloom

Since he was a small boy, Percival had watched his father tend to the great gardens of the Pendragon estate. He watched as Pellinore shaped the trees into the wondrous and fantastical shapes of dragons and lions, and he watched as his father planted bulbs and seeds, which grew into vibrant flowers.

Percival knew all of their names; he knew that the peonies grew best in sun; he knew that you should only prune lavender in August; he knew that you should never eat the roots of a columbine flower unless you wished to be poisoned; he knew that violets could survive through a hard frost. In addition, he knew that he loved the roses best.

He loved them all—the brooding red, the sunny yellow, the blushing pink, the pallid white. He loved them in spring when the flowers were young and full of life. He loved them in summer when they became plump and velvety. He even loved them in autumn, when the rain turned them brown and their petals dropped like leaves off a tree.

One day, Percival knew, he would be the head gardener. It would be his responsibility to watch over all the plants and flowers in the estate—not just those he loved best. Despite this knowledge, he still loved the roses, often-spending guiltily snatched minutes there, basking in their glory.

~

In 1937, Percival’s good—no, good wasn’t quite the right word. Lancelot was a good friend, but he was also so much more—friend Lancelot married his sweetheart Guinevere. The happy couple moved into a small cottage several miles from the Pendragon estate. In honour of their union, Percival planted a rose bush, near the mossy old oak.

When spring came, he waited in anticipation for the first buds to appear. May passed, then June. The leaves of the bush stayed green, but not a single flower bloomed. He didn’t give up hope—it wasn’t terribly uncommon for bushes not to bloom in their first year. So he put the little rose bush out of his mind.

~

Down in the village of Camelot, there was a small pub—the jolly tankard. His father had first taken Percival there when he was a boy. Not much had changed since then; the long bar was still rough and slightly sticky; the stools still rocked on ever-so-uneven legs; even the patrons were mostly the same rowdy crowd of his boyhood—with a few notable editions. Now there was Gwaine, an old friend from school, drinking with the best of them (and holding his own against several notorious drinkers—he was gaining quite the reputation.) and enjoying being not quite sober. Sitting on the stool next to Gwaine was Merlin, whose self-sacrificing sighs could give the martyrs of old a run for their money.

Sitting on the rickety porch—Percival wouldn’t trust it to hold more weight than the few chairs resting on it, personally—were Leon and Elyan, engrossed in a deep argument. Gesturing wildly and vigorously, it came as no surprise to Percival when, after a particularly energetic arm-sweep, Elyan knocked Leon’s hat off, sending it tumbling into the garden bed below. With a shout, Leon dived after it, clobbering Elyan on the head as he went.

Watching amusedly from the building across the road was Mithian, the young—and very pretty, according to Leon (Who, Percival was sure, was quite the expert.) – Schoolmaster’s assistant. Seeing Percival looking at her, she blushed and waved, then ducked back behind the curtains. Having recovered his hat, Leon settled back into his chair, grumbling at Elyan and dusting his dirty headwear vigorously. When several flecks of dirt landing on his shirt distracted Elyan, Leon glanced at the—now—empty schoolhouse window. If Percival were a betting man—which he wasn’t, despite Gwaine’s best attempts—he would have wagered all his money on those two settling down some day.

“Percival!” Walking down the road was Morgana and Nimueh, their arms linked together and feet striding in synch. He tipped his hat greeting, leaning his bicycle against the wooden pickets of the pub’s fence.

“Ladies,” he greeted when they were close enough for him not to have to shout. “What brings you here? I thought you were in London until the fifth?” Arthur had mentioned that his sister was accompanying her friend when she was visiting a sick uncle and wouldn’t be back until after their father’s birthday – Percival knew this was true because he had heard his father grumble about Mr Pendragon’s foul mood.

Morgana made a face, her red lips twisting into a pout of distaste. “Nim’s aunt decided that having two ‘flighty young woman with no sense of decorum’ staying with her would not improve her husband’s condition and would only distract the servants.” Percival thought that Nimueh’s aunt sounded rather like his grandmother. He shuddered at the thought.

“Never mind that,” Nimueh laughed. Like her companion, her lips were red, but they were parted into a smile. “Tell us all the news. Has the rose bush flowered yet?” And, needing little prompting, Percival launched himself into a tale of school assistants, moody old gentlemen, and stubbornly unblooming flowers.

~

Spring came again, bringing with it the promise of roses. A promise that spring did not keep. Throughout the green months of growth, Percival’s roses stayed stubbornly leafy. Not a single bud appeared—not one. Not a hint of colour against the fresh green of the bush.

Gwaine laughed at him—but, then again, Gwaine laughed at everything and didn’t mean any harm—and his devotion to the flowers that refused to grow. Merlin hit him when he laughed and told Percival that he was sure they would grow one day. Percival appreciated the thought, but even he was beginning to fear they would never grow.

~

When he said goodbye to his sister, the ground was frozen and the trees were dusted with white. Dindrane had been carrying a child, a little girl who was lost along with her mother. He stood with his father and brother-in-law in the lonely graveyard, watching as icy clods of earth covered his sister. And when Bors collapsed by the graveside, begging her to return to him, Percival turned away and lifted Tor into his arms. The boy was too young to know what had truly happened; he only knew that Mama had gone away with the angels.

Later, he would be able to return to the grave, leaving flowers by the pale headstone. By the sprawling trees near the edge of the graveyard was another familiar headstone. Beneath this one lay his beloved mother. Yglais, like her daughter, died with her baby. Unlike Dindrane, Percival never left flowers here. His mother had never cared for them, and so he left stones there instead, collected from the riverbank or from the earthy floor of the forest.

He took his nephew there, too. Bors sometimes came with them, but mostly he wasn’t ready to face the pale headstone of his wife. So, Percival and Tor sat by his mother and grandmother, telling them all the latest news. They heard about the scandal Nimueh’s haircut had caused; they heard about Ygraine’s delight when her book was published; they heard about their family and all of their achievements and triumphs and trials and sorrows. Percival liked to pretend they were sitting there with him and Tor, listening attentively to all that was said. Tor knew that they were only headstones, but the visits made his uncle happy and so he kept coming – although he didn’t talk much. Mostly, he watched Percival talk; enjoying the smile he always wore when he did.

~

Percival felt no small amount of satisfaction when Leon finally admitted that he was going to court Mithian. He remembered the longing sighs—and there had been many—and the quick glances across streets and through windows. So it came as no surprise to him that they had certain mutual interest in one another.

“Honestly, Leon,” Gwaine told their friend, speaking through a mouthful of stew, “If you hadn’t made a move soon, I would’ve.” Blushing furiously, Leon ducked his head amongst the bellows of laughter that followed Gwaine’s statement. Percival chuckled as Merlin smacked Gwaine, who smiled innocently back. A clap on the shoulder distracted him.

Turning, Percival saw Lancelot standing behind him, grinning. “So,” he began, drawing out the word, “When are you going to settle down, Percival?” Percival swallowed a mouthful of stew in shock and started to cough.

Arthur smirked. “How about I set you up with Morgana?” If he could talk, Percival would have been refusing vigorously. Not that there was anything wrong with Morgana, of course, she just wasn’t the sort of woman Percival could picture himself settling down with. From across the table, the lady in question wrinkled her nose.

“I should think not.” At her words, he nodded desperately. He was in complete agreement.

~

Spring of 1939 dawned, full of promise. Despite his earlier doubts, Percival was sure that his roses would bloom this year. Unlike last year, he didn’t visit the small cottage where Lancelot and Gwen lived once, sure that they would tell him when the roses bloomed.

May arrived, and no word of roses had come from the little cottage. Percival felt his hope waning. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps they wouldn’t bloom. Maybe they would never bloom. No, he thought, he was sure they would bloom eventually. And when they finally did, he would be there to see it.

~

Percival remembered all the happiness of August. He remembered the long days spent in the sun, growing brown and freckled. The picnics in the fields, the rambles in the woods. He remembered the visits with Tor, telling Dindrane and Yglais all that had occurred. He remembered the delight that had filled the little cottage when Gwen and Lancelot announced that they were expecting.

He remembered September, the news of war, of fighting in Belgium. He remembered the speeches, the declarations of bravery and unwillingness to stand down. He remembered enlisting, like so many men—he doesn’t remember his father watching him leave, remembering all the boys who went to war twenty-five years ago and come back shattered into a million pieces. And his father remembered the ones who didn’t come back.

They send him to the front, after a scarce few months of training (Percival remembered the drills, the marching, the trench digging. He remembered the men he met, the ones he trained beside and joked with and slept near. It never occurred to him that not all of them would come back.) and he joined his fellow soldiers in the trench.

He remembered the men—the ones who were terrified, the older ones who remembered the Great War, the ones who had accepted their fate. After a while, they all blended together. They were all men, no matter their attitude—and he remembered the time they spent together, playing cards, sleeping—not very well, or for very long—and quivering in fear together whenever the sounds of fighting reached them.

He remembered the letters they sent him from home. Gwen’s were always long, full of stories and details of Camelot. Merlin’s were shorter, full of questions and barely disguised longing. The ones from those fighting also—Leon, Lancelot, Elyan, and Gwaine—came irregularly, but were always welcome. He kept the letters he received in an old biscuit tin, storing them away for later.

In March, he remembered the roses he had left by the oak. He wondered if they had flowered. Percival felt sure they hadn’t. They were surely waiting for him to be there to see it.

~

Percival remembered May 10. He remembered the confusion; he remembered the shouts—“The Jerrys are here!”—and he remembered the fighting. He remembered the bullets that flew through the air like deadly hail, raining down on soldiers and blooming red across their uniforms.

He remembered the force behind the one that struck him, felt his ribs shatter as it passed through him. The ground was wet when he hit it; wet with mud, wet with blood. And as he lay there, trampled and dying, he thought that the red blooms of blood looked rather like flowers. And then he thought, he’ll never see the roses bloom. And he closed his eyes and lay still amongst the mud and bloody flowers.

~

The roses bloomed, red as those that had covered Percival and his comrades, and Tor carried them with him as he entered the graveyard. He didn’t leave them at the first grave, although he did stop there and tell his mother that he loved her and place a bright peony by her headstone. They were her favourite. They weren’t for the second grave either. Instead, he placed a water-smoothed stone carefully with others and wished that he had met his grandmother.

It was in the quiet corner of the graveyard, a shady patch of grass with climbing mass of camellias covering the stone wall, that he left the roses. They rested below the tumble of pink flowers, very red against the grass. Tor sat on the springy ground and, with the image of a grave standing on a European field somewhere with thousands of others, he began to talk. He talked of Gwen and her little son, Tom, who had been named for her father. He talked of Leon and Mithian, and the way that the former had proposed on his leave. And the way that she had cried and told him, of course. He told of Arthur, who had gone away to America on some mysterious business. He mentioned Merlin, who resented being left behind while the others fought and sacrificed themselves for their country. And, sitting there, talking to the distant grave, he thought for a moment he saw Percival, sitting opposite him, legs crossed and hands under chin.

**Author's Note:**

> So, after From now until the end of time, I was going to write a happy fic with lots of Merwaine, but that didn't happen. Obviously. I remembered that I'd added the bit about Percival's roses in the postscript of Merlin's letter - because I needed to say something about Percival and I couldn't think of anything else, but moving on - and I had the idea for this fic.  
> For those of you who aren't experts of the Arthurian legends, Pellinore was the Listenoise and Percival and Dindrane were the children of him and Yglais. Tor is technically their half-sibling, but he worked better as Yglais' son. Bors was one of the knights who accompanied Galahad on his quest for the Holy Grail.  
> Let me know in the comments what you thought, and if there's another aspect of this universe that you would be interested in reading about!


End file.
